I haven't played any tournies in awhile because I really don't have the 5-6 hours of time it takes to dedicate to playing one during the week. I got home from work the other night and took a nice hour and a half nap and was refreshed and ready to go for some tournaments. I entered the 25K on Stars, 24K on FTP, and 30K on Bodog. As always I busted out of the Stars with some cold ass cards and barely made the money in the other two so the night was pretty uneventful. I don't know how the hell I made the money in the Bodog tourney. After the first 2 hours I was in the top 15 in chips when the following hands happened.

blinds 100/200

MP 2000 shoves
HJ 5000 calls He had been playing very loose
Hero BB 15000 AK shove

MP KQo HJ AJo board 10 J 9 2 A


few hands later I have QQ and get it all in vs 6000 stack who has AK
Q 10 3 J 4

I was down to 4000 and managed to build my stack back up with some crafty resteals and taking advantage of my position.

Blinds 150/300
I'm UTG with AA and raise to 900, MP rr to 2900, button goes all in for 4500.
I called and the MP called. I shoved a 10 9 8 flop which was right around a 3/4 pot bet. MP folds, Button has QQ and the next two cards are a 7 and 6 for the split. At this point I started laughing to myself...what can you do?

I'm not bitching...just thought it was crazy. Again I built my stack up and was just in the money when my bustout hand happened. This is the hand I would like some input on.

Blinds 600/1200 ante 125

MP with 2000 shoves
loose button 30,000 calls I thought his range was very wide.
SB tag 40,000 completes for 1400 more into a 7000 pot. I assumed this player would isolate with JJ+ and AQ+ so I figured he had a med pair or KQ type of hand.

I had KJo with 20,000 in the BB. My image at the time was very good. I had made some resteals and position plays with marginal hands and garbage but no one saw any of them. The only hands I had shown were the ones above and some other premiums. I hate KJ but thought I could get both the button and SB to fold with a decent raise. I decided not to shove because I thought that would look like a blatant steal or AK and a med pair might make the call. I made a raise to 9000. The button folded and the SB called for 7000 more which really surprised me. I figured if anyone would call it would be the button.

The flop was 10 2 5. The SB checked and I shoved for a little less than 1/2 pot bet. I thought for sure the SB had a med pair or AQ/AK after calling the first time around and just calling my raise. I felt he would fold his med pair and even if he did call I had outs but he turned over JJ. Definitely much stronger than I assumed...I would have expected a rr preflop but whatever. The SB was never going to get away from JJ but I want to know if my logic with this hand is correct? I even feel I should have done this with a much wider range than KJ.

Off to play some Halo 3...I'm like a little kid.

After writing my entry today I entered a Stars $109 and finished 2nd to last...lol. I had TP with a fdraw and villain flopped a flush with 24s.

Then I entered the Bodog 25k gtd and took first place. I usually go out Friday and Saturday nights but I happened to be around and cha ching! The 5th place FTOPS was on a Friday too...hmmmmm

Here was a critical hand that gave me the chip lead...kind of a donk move...curious what people think.

Blinds 6k/12k 1200 ante
7 people left

The button was the chip leader and had been active.
Button 360k
Hero SB 165k

He raised to 30K. I had K 9
I figured I was ahead of his range so I rr to 90k
He pushed making the pot roughly 270k and I called getting greater than 2:1
He turned over A J ugh! but I spiked a 9

I was planning on calling a push with my rr as I felt the extra chips would well be worth it. Please let me know what you think.

I never thought I would start a blog but I'm doing this for one main reason...to meet other poker players to help improve my game. I've read countless numbers of posts with people mentioning how other players have helped them grow as a player.

"I would venture to say that there are very few excellent players online who haven't made any friends at the table, don't know anyone at the table, don't discuss hands with anyone, and make poker a completely solo project. It's just not very likely. I think that to be successful in this game, you need a good support system around you to help you develop your game." - Belowabove
Below lives in the chicago suburb where I lived most of my life and my gf lives there currently. I would love to learn from him but he is a top rated player and understandably is not interested in someone like me. Below's statement is similar to tons that I have read.

I have posted hands (not a ton) on 2+2 and read countless other posts that have helped me improve but I'm not satisfied with my stagnant state. The network on 2+2 seems to be composed of mainly mid to low 20 year olds who post frequently throughout the day and this is not an option for me. It seems like the only way to infiltrate that system is to be younger and post a crapload. I have no problem learning from someone younger. I'm 32 and not married so I act like I'm 25 anyways :)

No one may read this damn thing anyways and I may be going at it all wrong but it's worth a try. I'm not asking for someone to teach me everything they know and how to win. I don't feel like I'm a complete novice. I placed 5th in the FTOPS event #1 earlier this year, 1st in FTP 15K gtd, 5th and 8th in Bodog 40K this summer. I'm also a winning player at 1/2 6 max. I know that this is nothing special which is why I want to improve.

What drew me to this site were Adanthar and Nath. I've been reading both of their posts on 2+2 for quite some time. I always seemed to agree with what Adanthar said so I started reading most of his posts. In order to loosen up my game I began to read some of Nath's posts and watched a couple of his hand histories (Although Adanthar has loosened up quite a bit over the past year or so). I read many other peoples too but they have stuck out to me the most which was very strange when they both started blogs here.

Thanks for reading and I'll write how I got into poker in my next post. I hope to update my blog at least once a week.